Linking an Excel file to a PowerPoint presentation allows you to present and visualize complex data in a much simpler and more understandable form for users. This function is very useful in the case of academic or business presentations, but the interesting thing is that it also allows you to easily create tables on the presentation, and to modify the data of the table in an appropriate way without changing the presentation itself.
Steps
Part 1 of 2: Open the Files to Link
Step 1. Open the Excel file you want to link to the PowerPoint presentation
To open it, select "Microsoft Excel" from the "Start" menu. Once Excel starts, you can choose to open an existing Excel file or create a new document.
If you choose to create a new document in which to insert a link to a PowerPoint presentation, you will first need to save it as an Excel file before you can make any kind of link
Step 2. Open the PowerPoint file you want to link the Excel file to
Start Microsoft PowerPoint by selecting it from the start menu. Once started, you can open an existing PowerPoint presentation or create a new one by clicking the "File" button in the upper left corner of the menu bar.
Part 2 of 2: Link the Files
Step 1. Choose where you want to insert the Excel file
On the PowerPoint presentation, click on the text field where you want to insert an Excel file, then click on the "Insert" tab, in the upper left section of the window, to display the toolbar.
Step 2. Click on the "Object" button
A small window called "Insert Object" will appear.
Step 3. Click on the "Create from File" option
This option will allow you to link an existing file to the PowerPoint presentation, in this case, the Excel document.
Step 4. Select the file to insert
Still in the "Insert Object" window, click on the "Browse" button and navigate to the location of the Excel file you want to link. Once you have found the file, select it and click "Ok".
Step 5. Select the "Connection" option
Go back to the "Insert Object" window and be sure to select the "Link" option next to the "Browse" button. This way, changes made to the Excel file will automatically be reflected in the PowerPoint presentation.
- Click on "Ok" to confirm the operation.
- The data table in the Excel file should now be displayed on the presentation slide. You can move it anywhere in the presentation and adjust its height and width by clicking and dragging the corner points along the slide page.
Step 6. Make sure the link is working
Go back to Microsoft Excel and edit the data in one of the cells. Once you've changed one of the cells, go back to PowerPoint. The Excel object data in the presentation should reflect the same changes made to the Excel file.
Advice
- It is not necessary to save the Excel file before viewing the changes made in the presentation. The inserted object should reflect the changes made during the editing operations.
- To link Excel documents to a PowerPoint presentation using an older version of Microsoft Office, you will need to re-save the Excel file in a format that the old version of PowerPoint can read.
